Lie by Moonlight Read Free Page A

announced. “Let us be off.”
    She picked up the darkened lantern and led the way outside. The girls crowded behind her like so many goslings.
    The scene that confronted them was lit by a hellish yellow glow. Chaos reigned in the large courtyard. Concordia could see a number of darkly silhouetted figures rushing madly about, calling orders that no one appeared to be obeying. Two men were occupied hauling buckets of water from the well, but it was clear that the small staff of the castle was unprepared to deal with an emergency of this magnitude.
    Concordia was stunned to see how much devastation had already been wrought. Only a few minutes ago the flames had been long, searing tongues licking from the gaping mouths of a few shattered windows. In the short span of time it had taken her and the girls to descend the ancient staircase, the fire had grown into an inferno that was rapidly consuming the entire new wing.
    “Oh my,” Theodora whispered. “They will never be able to quench those flames. I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire castle burns to the ground before dawn.”
    “I never thought the formula would create a fire of that size,” Phoebe said, awed.
    “We have got just the distraction we require,” Concordia said. “Hurry, everyone. We do not have a moment to spare.”
    She went forward quickly, conscious of the weight of her cloak and gown. It was not just the long skirts and heavy material that made running difficult tonight. Over the course of the past few weeks she had sewn a number of small items that looked as if they could be pawned into hidden, makeshift pockets. The idea was that the stolen goods would eventually be used to sustain them when she took the girls into hiding. But at the moment each item felt like a block of lead.
    The girls stayed close behind her, moving easily in skirts that had been stitched together to form wide-legged trousers.
    They fled in a tight cluster past the row of sagging, boarded-up outbuildings that had once housed grain and supplies for the castle.
    A short time later they rounded the corner of the old smithy. The stables loomed ahead in the shadows.
    Concordia was concentrating on the next phase of The Plan when a large man moved out of the shadow of the remains of the ancient windmill and planted himself squarely in her path.
    There was enough light from the glare of fire and moon to make out his thick features. She recognized Rimpton, one of the two men who had arrived from London earlier in the day. His coat was tattered and singed.
    He held a gun in one hand.
    She froze. The girls did the same, perhaps instinctively imitating her in the face of danger.
    “Well, now, if it isn’t the teacher and all her pretty little students,” Rimpton said. “And just where d’ya think you’re going?”
    Concordia tightened her fingers into a death grip around the handle of the lantern. “We’re escaping the flames, you dolt. Kindly get out of our way.”
    He peered at her more closely. “You’re heading for the stables, ain’t ye?”
    “It would appear to be the building that is farthest away from the fire,” Concordia said, putting every ounce of disdain she felt for the brute into the words.
    She had disliked Rimpton on sight. There had been no mistaking the lecherous manner in which he had looked at the girls.
    “You’re up to some trick,” Rimpton said.
    “Hannah?” Concordia said, not taking her eyes off Rimpton.
    “Y-yes, Miss Glade?”
    “Kindly demonstrate Araminta’s response to Lockheart’s surprising revelation in Sherwood Crossing. ”
    Rimpton’s heavy face screwed into a confused knot. “What the bloody hell—?”
    But Hannah had already taken the invisible stage. She launched herself wholeheartedly into the role of Araminta, the heroine of the sensation novel she had finished reading the week before.
    Uttering a choked cry of anguish and despair, she crumpled to the ground in a perfectly executed swoon that would have done credit to the